Letter: I have been writing about it for years. But it’s only now, when I’m caught in the middle of it, that the full force of this injustice hits me. Like everyone else here I feel powerless, unstrung as I watch disaster unfold in slow motion.
I live in the last small corner of Gaul still holding out against the Romans. In other words, a small market town (Machynlleth in mid-Wales) which has yet to be conquered by the superstores. No one expects us to hold out for much longer.
Last month Tesco submitted an application to subjugate us (1). It wants to build a store of 27,000 square feet on the edge of the town centre (2). This is twice the size of all our grocery stores put together, and bigger than our tiny settlement – 2100 souls – can support. Tesco will prosper here only if other shops close and customers come from miles away.
Over 300 people – roughly one fifth of the adult population – have sent letters of objection. The case against the store and the strength of local feeling is so strong here that if we can’t beat Tesco, no one can. But, being deficient in magic potion, we have precious little chance of stopping it.
This town’s tragedy has been precisely foretold. In 1998, the government commissioned a study of the impact of big stores on market towns (3). It found that when a large supermarket is built on the edge of the centre, other food shops lose between 13 and 50% of their trade.
The result is “the closure of some town centre food retailers; increases in vacancy levels; and a general decline in the quality of the environment of the centre.” Towns are hit especially hard where supermarkets “are disproportionately large compared with the size of the centre”. In these cases the superstore becomes the new town centre, leaving the high street to shrivel.
If this monster is built, everything that is special and precious and distinctive about this town – the quirky shops, the UK’s oldest farmers’ market, the busy community – falls under its shadow. Tesco will suck the marrow out of us.
The prospects for small shops were dim enough during the boom. As the supermarkets closed in, independent stores in the UK shut at the rate of 2,000 a year between 1997 and 2004(4). Now they’re in much bigger trouble.
A report by the Local Data Company at the end of July suggests that 12,000 independent shops have already closed in England and Wales this year(5). Tesco, by contrast, has been mopping up. In April, for the first time, its turnover exceeded £1bn a week(6).
But in seeking to oppose its application, we find ourselves fighting bound and gagged. Tesco launched its campaign with an exhibition and “consultation”, which seemed to me to be wildly biased in favour of the development.
I asked its PR man whether the consultation would be independently audited. The answer was no. Tesco announced that the great majority of residents were in favour of the store. A door-to-door survey by local people discovered the opposite, but I think you can guess which study made the headlines.
We waited, but we had no idea when Tesco would submit its application. Like all developers, it is not obliged to give prior notice. It submitted its plans to the county council on June 24th.
The council didn’t release them until July 14th. From Tesco’s point of view, the timing was perfect. This was the week in which the county’s schools broke up and many of its opponents were setting off on holiday. We had until July 31st to register our objections (we lost four days due to council fumbling). People are now returning from their holidays to discover that it’s too late to object.
To compound the unfairness, there is no legal requirement for the developer to ensure that the claims it makes are accurate.
Tesco’s application is riddled with questionable statements. It maintains that the new store “will provide a minimum of 140 additional full and part time jobs”(7). But the superstores’ own research shows that every large outlet causes the net loss of 276 jobs(8). That’s hardly surprising: independent shops employ five times as many people per unit of turnover (9). Tesco maintains that it will buy local produce “wherever possible”(10).
But when its representatives were challenged on this point, they said that local suppliers would have to sell their produce to the company as a whole. It would be trucked to the nearest distribution centre – now 120 miles away in Avonmouth – and then trucked back across Wales to Machynlleth(11). Incredibly, Tesco proposes that its new store will reduce the traffic on our congested roads(12). It appears to be relying on a radical misinterpretation of the evidence(13).
But the real issue is this: if the county council turns it down, Tesco can appeal. The cost to the council would be astronomical.
As John Sweeney, leader of North Norfolk District Council observed, Tesco “are too big and powerful for us. If we try and deny them they will appeal, and we cannot afford to fight a planning appeal and lose. If they got costs it would bankrupt us.”(14)
Hardly any local authority is prepared to take this risk. Tesco can keep appealing and resubmitting, using its vast funds until it gets what it wants. Objectors, by contrast, have no right of appeal. The inequality of arms means that we scarcely stand a chance.
Once the store is built, we will quickly be deprived of choice. As the first wave of customers peels off and the income of the independent stores declines, the quality and range of their produce falls, driving more people into Tesco’s arms. From that point on, the collapse becomes unstoppable.
The question that occurs to me is this: why should people who don’t live here be making this decision? Why do the planning laws not permit us to hold a referendum? I understand why decisions about essential services should not be made by the community alone. I know that rich villages try to shut out social housing and that local people campaign against hostels for the homeless and mental health units.
But in this case we are not talking about essential services. We are talking – or so we are told – about choice. You can already buy all the food you need in this town, including (from the market stalls) much cheaper produce than the superstores sell. By voting against Tesco we would not be depriving anyone of the means of subsistence.
So why should we hand this decision to a remote and frightened county council? The choice should be ours and ours alone, and it should be final. If planning had worked like this, I’m sure that Britain would be a very different country, in which independent shops still thrived and communities still deserved the name. This might look like a battle over diversity and local character. Underneath it is a struggle for democracy.
George Monbiot
Machynlleth
References:
1. http://www.keepmachspecial.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/planning_application001.pdf
2. 2565 square metres = 27,600 square feet.
3. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, October 1998. The Impact of Large Foodstores on Market Towns and District Centres. I’ve posted the executive summary here: http://www.keepmachspecial.org.uk
4. Friends of the Earth, April 2007. Shopping the Bullies. http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/shopping_the_bullies.pdf
5. BBC Online, 31st July 2009. 19,000 shops ‘closed this year’.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8177502.stm
6. Jonathan Prynn, 16th April 2009. Every little helps … Tesco tills now ring up £1 billion every week. Evening Standard.
7. Tesco Stores Ltd, June 2009. Machynlleth: Retail Assessment. Para 3.11. http://www.keepmachspecial.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/retail_assessment001.pdf
8. Sam Porter, Paul Raistrick, January 1998. The Impact of Out-of-Centre Food Superstores on Local Retail Employment. The National Retail Planning Forum, c/o Corporate Analysis, Boots Company PLC, Nottingham. The NRPF was at the time financed by Tesco, Sainsbury, Marks and Spencer, Boots and John Lewis.
9.Letter from Emma Hallett, New Economics Foundation, April 1998.
10. Tesco Stores Ltd, June 2009. Machynlleth: Retail Assessment. Para 7.35. http://www.keepmachspecial.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/retail_assessment001.pdf
11. Ecodyfi, 2009. Planning application P/2009/0746. Annex B: Analysis of Tesco Machynlleth application. http://www.keepmachspecial.org.uk/?page_id=51
12. Tesco Stores Ltd, May 2009. Land at Heol y Doll, Machynlleth: Transport Assessment.
para 6.2.5 http://www.keepmachspecial.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/transport_assessmentment001.pdf
13. Ecodyfi, ibid.
14. Quoted by Paul Brown, 22nd January 2004. Secret deals with Tesco cast shadow over town. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/supermarkets/story/0,12784,1128488,00.html
See Also:
5 Comments
“The question that occurs to me is this: why should people who don’t live here be making this decision? Why do the planning laws not permit us to hold a referendum? I understand why decisions about essential services should not be made by the community alone. I know that rich villages try to shut out social housing and that local people campaign against hostels for the homeless and mental health units.”
This letter appeared as an article in yesterday’s “Guardian”. Others have already commented on the paper’s website that George seems to believe that the right to object should only to proposals that HE opposes.
I agree with his views on the likely impact of the Tesco store, but he seems unable to accept that local people can have valid objections to social housing, hostels for the homeless and mental health units.
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you will be assimilated. Resistance is futile!
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Local councils representative value is dissolved by these organsiations who have lots of experience in following plans through efficiently, local democracy has not. It’s also not supported en masse by local people or in many cases can’t understand or couldn’t care less if it didn’t effect them directly. Perhaps we need to lose everything all over again before we learn what we’ve lost?
..and Machynlleth, if they win, don’t be surprised if they don’t carry on to break the rules they agreed to anyway. In Madeley, Shropshire, local councillors were surprised(!) that Tesco decided they’re going to open 24h when it wasn’t agreed to anyway. Its not as if evidence of their behaviour isn’t available on the net already.
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Tesco have had their run, and having reached saturation point in large urban areas, and been somewhat unsuccessful in the international arena, are now, rightly, facing public anger and scrutiny as they move into to mop up smaller. economically vulnerable market towns.
All up the Welsh border, supermarket operators have discovered livestock market land on edge of town, out of town sites and are striking deals left right and centre to develop these sites. Market towns have historical context, their centres are small and economically fragile, they are often among the last towns to have a decent range of independent traders, and they are often towns that depend upon visitors and tourism for their livelihoods. If or when these town centres are destroyed by over scale supermarkets and retail, selling all the food needs and comparison goods needs of such a town,,,,,,,, then that is it. The end of market town culture, the end of independents, and the end of visitors, because who wants to visit a clone town?
Planning law really has to change, and fast, before we have lost more than we realise. And for what? Two for one on a couple of bags of sell by date tangerines and a crowded car park. I’d urge anyone, directly affected or not, to kick off at local, regional and national government levels, at planning departments, and to avoid supermarkets as much as you can……. and boycott Tesco in particular who are particularly adept at ruthlessly and cynically bending the rules around in their favour as far as they will go.
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Interesting, thought-provoking letter from George Monbiot (+ comments), exposing the cynical, under-hand practices of Tesco to the democratic light of day.
I wish George and the anti-Tesco campaign group in Machynlleth the very best of luck in publicising just how damaging a store like this would be for the local economy, shops and jobs.
Here in Shrewsbury this is what happens when Tesco gets a foothold.
http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/08/08/anger-after-tesco-breaks-space-rule-2/
It ‘inadvertently’ breaks planning rules…
For those wishing to stand up for the local economy and reverse the trend of Tesco ‘inadvertently’ taking over retail, I recommend the book ‘Tescopoly’ by Andrew Simms.
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